Williams

Pastor Maldonado, Williams, Barcelona, 2012

Active years: 1977-
Previous identities: none

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History

Frank Williams originally ran a team using customer cars. Then in 1977 he set up Williams as an F1 constructor and two years later Clay Regazzoni gave the team its first win at Silverstone.

The following year Williams were constructors’ champions for the first time and Alan Jones claimed the drivers’ title. Two years later Keke Rosberg followed in Jones’s footsteps, again with Cosworth power.

A switch to Honda turbo engines took a while to come good but it delivered in a big way in the mid-eighties when Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell were driving. Williams won back-to-back constructors’ championships, Mansell narrowly missed the 1986 title, and Piquet clinched it the following year.

But the loss of Honda engines to McLaren in 1988 hit the team hard. The seeds of recovery were sown when they switched to Renault power in 1989.

Mansell returned in 1991 and the following year Williams dominated again with the FW14B, which pioneered technology such as active suspension. While Mansell fumed at the arrival of Alain Prost for 1993 it didn’t knock the team off its stride – they easily retained their constructors’ title and Prost retired after claiming his fourth drivers’ championship.

Ayrton Senna arrived in Prost’s place in 1994 but it proved a tragically short partnership. Senna was killed in the third race of the season, leaving Damon Hill to lead the team.

Hill delivered the title in 1996 and Jacques Villeneuve followed in his footsteps the next year. But the departure of Renault left Williams looks for an engine supplier once more.

A new partnership with BMW brought race wins but not championships, and since the two split at the end of 2005 Williams has struggled to escape from the midfield.

Renault returned as engine suppliers in 2012 and the team were back on the top step of the podium within five races, Pastor Maldonado winning in Spain.

Results

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/charts/stats.csv

1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Championship position 9 2 1 1 4 4 6 3 1 1 7 2 4 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 3 5 3 3 2 2 4 5 8 4 8 7 6 9 8
Points 0 11 75 120 95 58 38 25.5 71 141 137 20 77 57 125 164 168 118 112 175 123 38 35 36 80 92 144 88 66 11 33 26 34.5 69 5 76
Wins 0 0 5 6 4 1 1 1 4 9 9 0 2 2 7 10 10 7 5 12 8 0 0 0 4 1 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Pole positions 0 0 3 3 2 1 1 0 3 4 12 0 1 1 6 15 15 6 12 12 11 0 0 0 4 7 4 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1

Cars

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Drivers

View the list of Williams F1 drivers

Headquarters

Williams,
Grove,
Wantage,
Oxfordshire,
OX12 0DQ,
United Kingdom

Major team personnel

Team principal: Frank Williams
Deputy team principal: Claire Williams
CEO: Alex Burns
Technical director: Mike Coughlan
Head of aerodynamics: Jason Somerville
Chief designer: Ed Wood
Race and test team manager: Dickie Stanford
Chief race engineer: Xevi Pujolar
Race engineer (Pastor Maldonado): Andrew Murdoch
Race engineer (Valtteri Bottas): Jonathan Eddolls

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